General Mills Says Sorry for ‘No Sue’ Policy After Uproar

Apologizes in blog post, social media

General Mills (GIS) is reversing course by revising its new legal policies that some said would prevent consumers from suing the company.

The maker of Cheerios, Betty Crocker and other food line items had previously updated its legal policies with language that stated: “all disputes related to the purchase or use of any General Mills product or service to be resolved through binding arbitration.”

Many decried the language, saying that it would prevent customers from suing General Mills.

On Saturday, the company backed away from the wording.

The company wrote that it had been mischaracterized.

“No one is precluded from suing us by purchasing our products at a store, and no one is precluded from suing us when they ‘like’ one of our Facebook pages,” spokeswoman Kirstie Foster wrote in a blog post.

“We’ve listened, and we are changing our legal terms back. Those terms – and our intentions – were widely misread, causing concern among consumers. We never imagined this reaction. Similar terms are common in all sorts of consumer contracts and arbitration clauses don’t cause anyone to waive a valid legal claim. At no time was anyone ever precluded from suing us by purchasing one of our products at a store or liking one of our Facebook pages. That was either a mischaracterization – or just very misunderstood.

“On behalf of our company and our brands, we would also like to apologize. We’re sorry we even started down this path. And we do hope you’ll accept our apology.”